Cold Weather

guidedbygbv

guidedbygbv

Active member
I have a shoot on top of Mt. Washington -60 with windchill, How will this camera react? Any suggestions on rain covers or snow covers?
 
Yikes!! You probbly have this but here's a link with current weather conditions:
http://www.mountwashington.org/

Will you be shooting day or night? Big difference. On a good day you may hit +20 before windchill. tonight it's very windy and the windchill will approach -70...

There are several camera covers, I've been looking into a "glove" for my 300. Portabrace makes one, I'd check with them to see if they had any suggestions. They're based in Vermont so they know about cold... Another resource might be Rule Broadcast in Boston. (I'm located just across the bridge on Cape Cod, much warmer than Mt. Washington...) They are my local rental house and they send cameras all over the globe. I have worked with them for 18-20 years and bought 3 cameras from them including my 300. They might have suggestions, or at least parameters for operating in the cold. Their tech is a fellow named Zbyszek Twarog, and he's quite knowledgeable about everything including Panasonic P2. (name is roughly pronounces "Spzissick", good luck with that!) Please post what you find out, I'm curious.
John
 
Thanks suthvid!

I will be there for 2 full days. Porta Brace makes a polar jacket but it cost $400 bucks and I will probably never use it again. uggghhhh
 
I'm shooting next week, 1/4 - 1/7, in Steamboat Springs, CO. I ordered a camRade SC-1 Snow Coat from B&H (~$340)but it was too big for the camera and I had to send it back. The quality looked really good so I ordered the SC-III which looks to be the correct size for the 300 but its back-ordered. So I'll go without a jacket for the camera. Temperatures are in the upper 20's right now (without any wind) so not so bad but I'll report back if I have any problems. Hopefully, just letting the camera acclimate to the cold slowly will prevent any lens fogging, etc. Other than that, I think the camera will perform fine. I just worry about dropping it in the snow and how cold my hands will get without gloves!!
 
Why would you shoot without gloves??? get yourself a pair of ski racing gloves... the thin spring ones will give you good mobility...

In Australia winters are pretty warm so I use fingerless woolen gloves that have a slip over mitten... they tend to be made from microfibre / polar-fleece now days...

I'm the reverse.. shooting for a week following Surf Life boats down the coast for 100 miles...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MAisxyvbWg

Cheers
 
I must have received your reply by psychic messenger! I just got back from REI and bought the thin skiing gloves and the fingerless gloves with the flip out mitten just like you describe. Now that's bizzare! But you're right. They look like the perfect solution. Thanks for the idea, psychic or on the DVX forum.
 
The Iditarod was shot with HPX500's and 200's so i don't imagine the 300 would perform any differently.
My $.02 anyway.
 
Yeah, I had the 500 up at the Iditarod a couple of years ago, and it just didn't even blink at the cold. The LCD panel can get stuttery and hazy, so you will want to bring some hand warmers with you and strap one to the LCD, but the whole P2 thing just doesn't mind the cold at all.
 
Barry, I remember your report on shooting the Iditarod (which is where I'll be in 2011). It was part of the reason I bought an HVX200 which was a great camera. I'm taking your advice and keeping hand warmer packets in my kit as a standard item.

The specs for the HPX300 are 32-104F. Anyone use the HVX200 or HPX300 in the mid 20's? Any other concerns other than the LCD? Any lens problems?
 
As a bit of perspective, broadcast cameras have long exceeded that 32-104 degree f spec. I had a 1995 betacam that I used in -15 f weather without a cover & without any problem .
The two largest issues you may face in cold climates is shortened battery life due to the cold and LCD refresh issues again due to cold.

Lastly, condensation can be an issue going from cold to warm . a simple way to defeat the condensation problem is to have an airtight barrier bag large enough to put the camera in when transitioning from cold to hot . Place the camera in the barrier bag and seal it up while outside in the cold. This puts the camera in an environment of low relative humidity. Carry the camera into the warm environment and let it come up to the warmer inside temp while closed in the bag. Once the camera has transitioned in temp , open the bag and you are ready to go.
 
Mark Smith said:
As a bit of perspective, broadcast cameras have long exceeded that 32-104 degree f spec. I had a 1995 betacam that I used in -15 f weather without a cover & without any problem .
The two largest issues you may face in cold climates is shortened battery life due to the cold and LCD refresh issues again due to cold.

Lastly, condensation can be an issue going from cold to warm . a simple way to defeat the condensation problem is to have an airtight barrier bag large enough to put the camera in when transitioning from cold to hot . Place the camera in the barrier bag and seal it up while outside in the cold. This puts the camera in an environment of low relative humidity. Carry the camera into the warm environment and let it come up to the warmer inside temp while closed in the bag. Once the camera has transitioned in temp , open the bag and you are ready to go.
Click to expand...

You could probably throw a silica gel packet in there too, just in case.
 
john50t said:
The specs for the HPX300 are 32-104F.
Click to expand...
Those are the same specs for the HVX200, and we used those in 57 degrees below zero with no issues at all (other than previously-mentioned LCD becoming an ice-crystal display and needing warming).

Actually you may encounter more issues with the HPX300 only in terms of the lens, and I say that because one of the teams up there had a Varicam and they managed to break the lens off by bouncing the camera around on a dogsled at 50 below; the lens is entirely outside of the body and gets no heat, whereas on the fixed-lens handycams the lens is integrated and benefits from the heat generated by the electronics. So a fully external lens, in extreme (EXTREME) cold, may become more brittle and need a bit more care to avoid problems. Now, that's not to overstate the issue: nobody with the HPX2000s reported issues. When I used the HPX500 I certainly had no issues, but I think the coldest I faced on that day was maybe 10 below? I don't really remember, it's been a couple of years. So as long as it's not getting super-duper-duper cold, 50 below, you should have no issues (but, with the standard caveat that I haven't used a 300 in those conditions and don't know if maybe there's something about that specific camera that might not like the cold so much, but I've used a 200, a 500, and was there with a half-dozen 2000s with no problems, so I expect the 300 to perform similarly).

Oh, by the way, we had snow jackets for the HVXs, we didn't use 'em and didn't need 'em. Cameras worked just great without them.
 
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